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As the "Retake Mass Effect" Facebook groups swells to over 40,000 likes, …

Bioware was reportedly tweaking the ending for Mass Effect 3 right up through the end of development, even delaying a voice recording session for Martin Sheen's Illusive Man to accommodate more writing time.

(Warning: the remainder of this article contains spoilers about both the shape and the specifics of the ending to Mass Effect 3)

Writing on the official Bioware forums, Hudson said the series' overall story arc was always meant to "lead to a bittersweet ending" that captured the "underlying theme of sacrifice" and "the agonizing decisions [Commander] Shepard had to make along the way." But he added that the game also includes the option for "an inspiring and uplifting ending" in which Shepard finds a kind of victory in the "hopeless struggle for basic survival."

Still, Hudson said he respects the views of the thousands of players who have expressed dissatisfaction with the way the series ended:

But we also recognize that some of our most passionate fans needed more closure, more answers, and more time to say goodbye to their stories—and these comments are equally valid. Player feedback such as this has always been an essential ingredient in the development of the series.

Giving a concrete sense of closure wasn't really a central goal for the ending to Mass Effect 3, though. In an an interview with Digital Trends early last week, Hudson said he was looking for a memorable ending that would generate "the sort of polarizing reaction that the ends have had with people—debating what the endings mean and what's going to happen next, and what situation are the characters left in."

And the precise details of that ending were apparently up in the air right through to the end of the game's development. In "The Final Days of Mass Effect 3" iPad app, journalist Geoff Keighley discusses how Hudson and writer Mac Walters were debating the final bits of end game dialogue "right up until the end of 2011," even delaying Martin Sheen's Illusive Man voice recording session from August to mid-November to give more writing time. A story planning document shown in the app points towards an ending that would include "lots of speculation for everyone," while still respecting the importance of the player's choices and feelings.

Regardless of the original intentions for the ending, Hudson assured fans on the forums that the team will "keep listening" as they design new downloadable content for the game, "because your insights and constructive feedback will help determine what that content should be. This is not the last you'll hear of Commander Shepard."

BioWare followed up with a post on the Mass Effect Facebook page today, saying that the developer is "actively and seriously taking all player feedback into consideration" and has "not made a decision regarding requests to change the ending."

The protests continue

Retake ME3

The new statements seem to have given Bioware a little breathing room with online protesters. The "Retake Mass Effect 3" Facebook group, which now boasts over 40,000 likes and nearly 4,500 Twitter followers, recently posted that it was "giv[ing] Bioware a little more time to respond to us directly. ME3 has been out for less than two weeks, we need to give them time to realize we aren't going away."

That doesn't mean they're sitting on their hands in the meantime, though. The group finished a letter-writing campaign over the weekend, has added pages in Spanish and Russian to help get the word out internationally, and is "working on ideas to support the movement at [April's] PAX East [convention]," according to Facebook postings. The group is even putting its money where its mouth is, raising over $67,000 in donations for Penny Arcade's Child's Play charity to "bring positive attention" to their efforts. "We would like to dispel the perception that we are angry or entitled," the fundraising appeal explains. "We simply wish to express our hope that there could be a different direction for a series we have all grown to love."

But that hasn't been enough for some angry fans. One Bioware forum member recently wrote about filing complaints against publisher Electronic Arts with the FTC and the Better Business Bureau, claiming that prerelease developer interview statements regarding the ending constitute a form of "false advertising." It's a pretty shaky argument, given the vague and subjective nature of most if not all of those quotes, but it's a bold move that shows just how committed some gamers are to complaining about the game's ending.

The backlash against the ending is even getting big enough to generate a backlash of its own: A newly formed "Keep Mass Effect!" Facebook group popped up over the weekend "to show Bioware that these petitioners and lawsuit harbingers are, in fact, a minority to all those who love the Mass Effect series and how it ended." The group is off to a bit of a slow start, though, with only 27 members as of this writing.

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Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl